Jenny Kwan is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver East and is the New Democratic Party of Canada’s Immigration Critic.
Ms. Kwan is the Member of Parliament for Vancouver East and is the New Democratic Party of Canada’s Immigration Critic. Prior to being elected a Member of Parliament, Ms. Kwan was a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of British Columbia for the riding of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, and a senior member of the provincial caucus of the New Democratic Party.
Her Twitter is @JennyKwanBC
2:30 – 16:13 – We talk about Bill C-6, the Liberal Government of Canada’s reforms to Canada’s Citizenship Act. Ms. Kwan both talked about what she likes and dislikes about Bill C-6. A specific concern that she has includes the procedural fairness afforded to those facing citizenship revocation due to misrepresentation. The current process, which is the subject of numerous court challenges, is that an individual’s Canadian citizenship can be revoked by a bureaucrat if the bureaucrat determines that the Canadian citizen obtained their citizenship as a result of fraud. Humanitarian & compassionate concerns are not considered, and the only recourse that a former citizen has once their citizenship is stripped is to seek judicial review in Federal Court. During this portion of the discussion we also briefly discuss the topic of language testing requirements for grants of citizenship, which Ms. Kwan believes is too stringent.
16:13 – 31:48 – Ms. Kwan explains that one thing that she hopes is urgently changed in Canadian immigration law is the current situation involving the cessation of refugee status. Ms. Kwan has introduced into Parliament Bill C-294, which calls on the government to end the automatic loss of permanent resident status when a refugee’s status as a protected person is revoked.
31:48 – 40:37 – Another topic that Ms. Kwan is passionate about is whether the Canadian government should let American war resisters / dodgers / conscientious objectors remain in Canada. Jenny believes that they should. A specific question that Steven asked Jenny was whether she is concerned that Canada being too accepting of war resisters in this regard would open the floodgates such that anyone from Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. where the draft exists, could come to Canada and get permanent resident status as a way to avoid serving in their country’s military.
40:37 – 55:23 – As a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration, Ms. Kwan shared her thoughts on whether certain vulnerable groups should be given immediate, and some would say preferential, access to refugee resettlement in Canada. Jenny proposed five actions that she believes Canada can immediately take. The first is to work with organisations that deal with the world’s most vulnerable people and give them a pathway to resettlement in Canada. The second is to work with the LGBTQI community to help resettle members of that community in Canada. The third suggestion was to help immediately resettle individuals from northern Iraq using the UNHCR to process these cases. The fourth was to look at reintroducing the source country of origin class completely, and in particular for the LGBTQI community. Finally, the fifth was increase humanitarian aid to vulnerable groups.
55:23 – 1:03:08 – Peter and Steven discuss Ouedraogo v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2016 FC 810. In this case the Federal Court determined that an individual can be removed from Canada both during the 90 day restoration period and that they could be removed even after they have applied for restoration. The court’s approach is even stricter than current CBSA policy on the matter, which I have reproduced below.
1:03:08 – 1:05:51 – Peter briefly mentions the BC Supreme Court decision in R v. Nuttal, 2016 BCSC 1404, and mentions that we plan on having Marilyn Sandford, counsel for John Stuart Nuttall on in a future podcast. For those who do not know, this case involves a stay of proceedings being ordered after the court determined that police had entrapped two individuals into attempting to bomb the BC legislature.
1:04:41 – Finally, we wrap up by briefly talking about Pokemon Go.